Uncanny Apocalypse
by Kristianchild
Summary: New Gotham is shrouded in chaos after Helena makes a deal with a man who calls himself the devil, but who seems to know a great deal about the Joker. Meanwhile a mysterious stranger comes to town bound and determined to find "the batgirl."
1. The Uncanny

The second Helena Kyle opened her eyes, she knew she had stepped into a nightmare. She didn't know how she had entered, exactly, as her memory had been reduced to a series of involuntary impulses randomly flashing brief, insignificant sequences from various points in her life. She was tied spread-eagle to a giant vertical wheel, spinning faster and faster as she watched strange events unfold behold her: irate clowns stabbing one another before her very eyes and then devouring the live flesh on their daggers in vile acts of cannibalism; naked women being beaten with rods by fat, filth-ridden men in masks and then forced to perform oral sex; wild dogs ripping apart the innards of chained slaves who cried out in agony while watching their intestines being fought over in a horrific game of canine tug-of-war. Helena wanted desperately to break free and stop the madness, but all she could do was spin round and round, the rusted chains on her wrists and ankles tied so tightly that she bled as though she had the stigmata.

Then, far off in the background, draped in the shadows a great distance behind the atrocities stood a man whom she had never seen before, and yet she knew like her own father. It was a sensation she could hardly articulate: Sigmund Freud called it "unheimlich," or the uncanny, that intangible sensation of something being both completely foreign and eerily familiar, as though the two concepts were linked in some far-off chamber of the mind. The man in the shadows was terrifying but beautiful, even despite his features being concealed by the darkness. He was in fact, an endless stream of contradictions: strange but familiar, wicked but glorious, subtle but powerful. Helena wanted to make him love to him almost as much as she wanted to kill him. She didn't know who he was, but she knew she had met her match. His power of intimidation alone was enough to defeat her.

"Make them stop!" she cried out to him, her words echoing through the strange, foggy void in which she was present.

"They do as they please," the man responded without words. His words transmitted themselves straight into her mind without the faintest sound.

"What is this place?" she called out, trying once again to break free.

"This is my home," the man transmitted again. "The place between wake and sleep; the chamber where your nightmares are born, and every evil desire of your heart."

"Where the fuck am I?" Helena screamed, completely fed up with the mind games.

"Tell me your deepest desires," the man whispered to her mind, clearly ignoring her heartfelt query.

Immediately Helena's wheel began to spin faster and faster, until all she could see were swirls of light and darkness lulling her into a trance. She knew she had to fight it, and so she closed her eyes, bit her lip, and began to focus with as much strength as she possibly could, searching desperately for a single relevant memory, anything that could renew her understanding of what was going on, and hopefully offer some glint of a useful epiphany.

Finally something sparked. For a brief second, she saw an image of herself in a bed. There were white satin sheets, beads of sweat and an aura of passion in the air. She was not alone...

Suddenly the wheel began to slow down, as if reacting to her sudden remembrance. When she opened her eyes, she saw the swirls becoming slower until she could once again make out the horrible atrocities before her on the hard rocky ground, and the image of the uncanny man in the shadows. Suddenly she had a stunning thought, a possible key to what was going on. But it couldn't be...

She closed her eyes once again and considered the possibility of her new revelation. Then suddenly another memory flashed before her eyes, directly connected with the last. She was lying in the soft bed, her naked body against the satin sheets, her head pointed up at the ceiling. Her nerves tingled as soft lips kissed her stomach and moved slowly toward her thighs.

She came back to her senses and reopened her eyes just as the wheel began to slow even more. This time she was certain it was reacting to her thoughts, even though there was no logic to such a correlation. She looked past the cannibalistic clowns, wild dogs and abusive masked men and returned her focus to the uncanny man in the shadows. Yes, perhaps it was true…

"I can read your thoughts," the man whispered to her mind, "and that is how I am able to speak directly to them. I can see your fear...your frustration...your desire..."

Helena closed her eyes once again. As much as she wanted to scream "Fuck you!" and pull against her chains, she could only take deep breaths and resume her concentration. As much as she hated the bastard, she had far too much affection for him to curse him.

With her eyes closed, she witnessed the further continuation of the bedroom sequence. She was lying in complete submission, groaning with pure erogenous ecstasy as her mystery man's hot breath swept against her stomach with each passionate kiss. Then she placed a hand on his head and gently ruffled his hair. Finally, she turned her head downward to meet her lover eye to eye as he pulled his lips away from her belly button. Right as the sequence ended, the two of them gazed right into each other's eyes.

Instantly Helena's spinning wheel stopped completely, giving her a painful jolt. So it was true. The lover in her vague memory was the uncanny man in the shadows. She had just looked directly into his eyes, and yet she could not for the life of her picture his face. Once again, she just knew...

And she knew something else as well. Wherever she was, and whatever was causing her plight, she could control it with her mind. There was no doubt that her thoughts had stopped the wheel from spinning, and so perhaps it was merely her thoughts that prevented her from breaking free.

She closed her eyes once again and envisioned herself escaping. Then, almost instantly, her chains began to shake and then exploded into a thousand shards, allowing her to drop gracefully to the ground in freedom. She then rushed toward the masked men with the rods and began attacking them one by one with swift jabs and graceful kicks. She was expecting a challenge, but to her surprise, the men disintegrated into dust right as she touched them, causing her to wonder if it were all some grand optical illusion.

The dagger-wielding cannibal clowns and flesh-hungry dogs also disintegrated upon contact, until all that was left were scattered pyramids of ash and blank spaces where chained slaves and nude women had vanished into thin air. In the end, there was only the Huntress, Helena Kyle, and her mysterious lover, the Uncanny.

She stepped toward him slowly through the fog, noticing her surroundings for the first time. The hard, craterous road was unfamiliar, and the dark sky emanated with a bright red glow, as though the cosmos were aflame, clearly no place that Helena had ever visited before, and yet it felt strangely like home. Another strange paradox...

"What do you want from me?" Helena asked, continuing to step toward the man in the shadows.

"Your father once had a great nemesis," said the man, speaking audibly for the first time, "and that great nemesis would ask your father an important question; more of a riddle, really. Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" The man extended his hand to her from within the shadows, revealing a white glove.

Helena scoffed. "So you're the devil? Wow. That must be quite a responsibility. And how do you know my father?" She began pacing back and forth only a few feet away from the man, feeling his power in her veins and wanting to keep a safe distance while maintaining a bravado that suggested she did not fear him.

"I know all," said the man. "I see all. I know that you both love and hate me right now. I know that when you were a child you would dream about me. I can see into your very soul, Helena Kyle, and I can even take it by force if I wish it. Though I would prefer that you gave it to me of your own will."

Helena turned around. "Okay, I've heard enough. I don't know what this place is, but I know I can destroy you with a single thought, just like I destroyed those chains."

The man laughed. "Please try."

Helena closed her eyes, hesitated, and then opened them again. "I can't do it. Not because I'm unable, but because I feel some degree of compassion for you. Maybe it's pity, I don't know."

"It isn't pity, Huntress, nor is it compassion. It is desire. I asked you to tell me your desire, and your mind answered on your behalf."

Helena thought back to the visions she had just had. _Holy shit,_ she thought to herself. _What if he's right?_

She began walking away from him. "I need to get the hell out of here." As she walked, she closed her eyes and envisioned herself back home in New Gotham. Nothing happened. She tried even harder, clenching her eyelids tightly, but still nothing. Finally her concentration was interrupted by the laughter of the uncanny man, now several feet away.

"You're trying in your mind to escape," the man said to her, "but it is your soul that has imprisoned you here. You are in my clutches now."

Helena turned to him. "I don't believe in souls!" she shouted in his direction.

"All the better."

"What do you want with me?" she shrieked.

"To destroy you, perhaps, or to save you. You may have noticed that my very being is one endless series of dichotomies. Though some would have you to believe that I am pure evil. History has given me a bad reputation, with no help from the religious establishments and their so-called gods."

Helena turned from him once again.

"Your father is alive," he added. "I can reunite the two of you."

Helena turned to him once again, now fuming. "Fuck off!" she cried out in a rage, completely overwhelmed with fury even to the point of forgetting her affection for him.

But the uncanny man remained still and calm. "All you have to do is ask, and you can be back in his arms."

"I have had about enough of your games!" Helena shouted as she rushed toward him, jumped her own height off the ground and swung her leg to kick the side of his head in midair.

The uncanny man, though, maneuvered around her leg and rose even above her own elevated head by means of levitation to kick her in the chest, knocking her hard to the ground. Helena, of course, not about to accept defeat, jumped right back up and swung her foot at his groin just as he was coming down to the ground. He responded by dodging his body to the left—defying the laws of gravity—and using his own foot to kick Helena's raised ankle and knock her off balance.

When she returned to her feet, she made one last attempt to jab his throat, but he grabbed her wrist just in time to stop her and sent an insatiable impulse through her nerves. Once again she wanted him, and was far too weak in the knees to attempt any further acts of aggression. If being in his presence caused a strong a reaction, then making physical contact sent her into an emotional tailspin. She still could not see his face; even in the light it remained shadowed, as though constantly shrouded by a dark cloud, but she knew she wanted him, more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. She began to shake.

"You are strong," he said to her, "but not strong enough. If you allow me, I can teach you to be invincible, even immortal."

Helena nodded her head as she tried desperately to see his seemingly-absent face.

"Very good," he said to her. "Now let's dance."

Helena awoke in a trash heap in an alley in New Gotham, surrounded by rats and filth. Her memories and awareness were, for the most part, restored, but she was still quite befuddled about the events—whether real or dreamed—involving the spinning wheel and the uncanny man. As she stood up and wiped the garbage from her back and hair, she realized something else she could not recall: how the hell she had wound up in the trash.

As she limped through the alley and back into the busy streets of New Gotham, the morning sun shining down on her, she noticed that a message had been burned into her wrist. Curious, she stopped and raised her wrist to eye-level. The message read:

_Tonight. 8:00. New Gotham Park. Come alone._

TO BE CONTINUED...


	2. The Godshadow

"It all sounds like some strange, drug-induced hallucination to me," said Barbara, trying to make sense out of Helena's situation.

Helena leaned forward on her chair beside Barbara and sighed. "Well, that was my deduction, too, but I've retraced my steps a thousand times. I didn't eat or drink anything that could have been drugged, and obviously I'm not any medication. There has to be another explanation. There just has to..."

The two of them sat in silent contemplation in the main room of their hidden clock tower abode in New Gotham, surrounded by live, glowing computer equipment and plagued with the realization that the Huntress was in a terrible bind and for once the Oracle did not have all the answers.

"There's just something missing from this equation," Barbara said after a long silence. "We're looking for a tangible solution to an intangible situation. It just doesn't add up. Out-of-body experiences don't just happen, and there is no way we can really determine if it was all in your mind."

"I don't think it was," Helena replied. "It was just too real."

Barbara began rapping her fingers against her desk. "So you woke up chained to a spinning wheel in a strange, unfamiliar foggy place...you broke free by using your mind...you turned a bunch of strange people to dust just by touching them and you met a seductive, all-powerful man who claims to know your father. Is that pretty much the gist of it?"

"In a nutshell."

"And you can't remember how you got there? Or what you were doing precisely before the strange incident occurred?"

Helena shook her head. "The last thing I remember before that was talking with Mr. Rafferty at the newspaper. He interviewed me about the shooting at the bar last week, and then I was on my way. I left his office...and I guess that's where everything gets fuzzy."

Barbara nodded. "I think you need to pay Mr. Rafferty a visit. But tonight I want you to stay here."

Helena extended her wrist. "Uh, have you forgotten? I'm supposed to meet my strange, hallucinatory mystery man at the park tonight."

"Yes, I'm well aware, and that's precisely why I'm not letting you leave. We don't know what's going on yet, and I won't have you walking into a trap."

Helena groaned her disapproval.

"Come on, Helena. Some stranger carves a message into your wrist for you to visit the park alone at night. That doesn't strike you as being a bit odd?

"Of course it's odd! It's downright sinister, but unless I face this thing head-on, I'm never going to know what it all means. Besides, you know I can take care of myself. I'm well aware of the risks."

Barbara shook her head. "Yes, your prowess is matched only by your cockiness. Don't forget how many times I've had to pull you out of the fire. And it's not exactly easy, you know, being without legs and all. And judging by the kind of supernatural being we may be dealing with, there's a good chance I won't be able to help you at all this time."

Huntress rose from her seat. "Well, much as I appreciate your concern, I hope you understand this is something I have to do. If I don't get some kind of closure to this whole thing, I'll probably go out of my mind."

Barbara bit her lip as Helena stepped across the room. "Helena, if you walk out that door-"

Helena turned as she reached the door. "Look, I'll stay out of trouble, okay? I'm just going to check things out. If something happens, which it won't, you can just send Dinah along for backup. I think she can handle it."

"Handle what?" Dinah asked, entering the room.

Barbara simply shook her head and remained silent, while Helena stepped out the door, dressed in her finest formfitting black outfit. As much as she admired all that Barbara had done for her through the years, she did not appreciate being treated like a helpless child.

"Handle what?" Dinah asked again, stepping toward Barbara.

"Nothing," Barbara replied. "Helena's just going off to get herself killed."

The Huntress swept gracefully like a cat through the bustling city of New Gotham, scaling tall buildings and slithering soundlessly through the darkness. Winter had befallen the city, and the ground was just beginning to collect with the season's first snowflakes. Rain, sleet or snow, however, made no difference to the Huntress, especially on nights like tonight, when she roamed with a clear objective in mind.

Before reaching the park, though, she was halted by the sounds of a screaming woman in the distance. Immediately she followed the noise, fearing that an innocent woman was in danger, and found herself in a dark corner between three run-down buildings. There she saw a middle-aged woman being suffocated by a man in a black ski mask who brandished a knife in one hand.

"Shut the fuck up, you stupid bitch!" the man shouted at his victim as she continued to scream.

"Oh, you picked the wrong night, asshole," Huntress whispered from the shadows as she prepared to pounce on the man.

Before she could move, however, another figure emerged from above, having jumped down from one of the buildings just in front of the man with the knife. This strange person had dropped to the ground with the sort of eagle-like grace that the Huntress had never seen before, present company excepted. Could it have been her mystery man?

Whoever he was, he wore a gray mask that covered only his eyes and a gray vest with a single green question mark on the back. His pants and boots were also gray, and his hair was the color of redwood. Huntress was certain she had never seen him before, or at the very least, his was not a face she could recall.

The stranger kicked the knife out of the vile man's hand and then administered a series of high kicks while the crying, petrified woman ran to safety. The gray-clad stranger threw the man around like a rag doll for nearly five minutes until finally the man tearfully begged for his life, at which point he was given one last kick upside the head and released.

The masked stranger then jumped high into the air and began climbing the side of the building, ultimately disappearing from sight. Stricken by curiosity, the Huntress followed after him, chasing him to the top of the building and over the tops of three more. Certainly she knew all the metahumans in New Gotham, and this was not a person she recognized. Clearly then he needed to be checked out, lest he should prove to be a threat to the peace.

The stranger originally noticed her at the top of the first building, when he briefly turned his head to her and then continued to run. It almost seemed as though he enjoyed the chase, as he would occasionally stop and give the Huntress a chance to catch up only to continue his evasion. The Huntress, however, didn't find the situation so amusing. If anything, she was frustrated beyond measure by the fact that she was dealing with a difficult foe for the second straight evening. This, of course, did not do much for her ego.

Finally she did catch him, with a swift tackle near the edge of the third building. The stranger had foolishly stopped to taunt her just long enough for her to pounce on him. Once he was down on his back, she drove her knee into his throat and pulled off his mask, revealing the face of a very average young man, who really couldn't have been more than nineteen.

"Who the hell are you?" she asked. "And what are you doing here?"

The stranger lifted his legs off the ground and wrapped them around her neck, throwing her back just long enough for him to return to his feet and back away from her. "Listen," he said as she returned to her feet, "I don't know who you are, but my business here has nothing to do with you. Just back off and there won't be any trouble."

"I think you've already made trouble," Huntress replied. "Now I'll ask you again: Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"I didn't realize New Gotham had a queen," the stranger shot back. "Because only a monarch or an arrogant bitch would go around town asking people to state their business, and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt."

The Huntress then lunged at him again and knocked him off his feet. Then she grabbed his leg and swung him over the side of the building, so that he dangled with his head facing the ground far below, held up only by the Huntress's hands on his ankle. "Now I'm going to ask you just one more time: Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"Okay, okay!" the stranger pleaded. "Please, just let me up."

The Huntress pulled him back onto the building and held him down on his back with her boot. "Okay then. Let's hear it."

"I'm from Mason City," the stranger said.

"Mason City? That's over a hundred miles from here."

"I know," the stranger continued. "I was born and raised in New Gotham, and I'm back in town looking for someone."

"Who?"

"Haven't I told you enough already?"

The Huntress grabbed the stranger by his collar and pulled him to his feet. "Who are you looking for? Is it someone like us?"

The stranger pulled free from her and backed away slowly. "Yes she is, but I doubt you know her."

"What makes you so sure?" Helena asked. "I know all the metahumans in New Gotham. Well, that I'm aware of...They do seem to just keep popping up out of nowhere. Like you, for instance."

"Well if you do know her, I don't want to find her through you, because she's a great woman, and you're obviously evil. Yes, I'll bet she's probably an enemy of yours." The stranger began walking back toward the edge of the building.

The Huntress rushed in front of him. "What do you mean, evil? I'll have you know that this town would fall apart without me. My job is to keep evil at bay."

"Oh really? And I suppose that dangling total strangers off the top of tall buildings constitutes keeping evil at bay?"

"Well, you weren't answering my questions."

The stranger looked over the brightly lit streets of New Gotham and sighed. "Fine, I guess I'm desperate enough. After all I've been here two weeks now and haven't found any sign of her, not a single clue to her existence, and I'm usually good at finding people." He paused and turned slowly toward the Huntress. "Do you know the bat girl?"

The Huntress stood in place, somewhat stunned by the inquiry. She considered the question meticulously, not wanting to give away too much information to a total stranger, but at the same time not wanting her personal knowledge of the so-called "bat girl" to be obvious.

"I thought she was dead," the stranger continued with his back turned to the Huntress. "I had been told she was murdered...shot. But I recently discovered that no such murder was ever recorded, which means that maybe...just maybe she's still out there. I have to find her."

The Huntress stepped toward him. "I don't personally know any bat girls," she lied for the sake of caution, "but there is a chance I may know the woman you're talking about."

The stranger turned to her with anticipation in his face. "Please," he said, "I'll do anything to find her."

The Huntress began pacing around him. "Let's say for argument's sake that I am able to find her for you. What is your interest in her?"

The stranger sighed. "She saved my life when I was five years old. I never saw her again, and I never got the chance to thank her, but she's been on my mind ever since. And also, there are questions that plague me; questions I fear only she has the answer to. I just need answers...understanding...closure..."

"Tell me your name," Helena said to him, "and I'll see what I can do."

"I am known as the Godshadow," the stranger replied, "but she probably wouldn't know me by name. If you see her, just tell her that she saved my life in the junkyard fifteen years ago. If she is the one I'm looking for, she'll know what it means."

"Fine," said Helena. "Just wait for me back here, tomorrow night at ten. I'll see what I can do."

The Godshadow approached her. "You think you can find her in one day?"

Helena began walking away. "I have my connections. Now if you don't mind, I'm late for an engagement." She then leapt from the building and continued her race toward New Gotham Park, in the hopes that her faceless mystery friend would not be upset over her tardiness.

When finally she reached the park, she found only silence and darkness. She walked from one end of the grass to the other, constantly checking her surroundings for any signs of another living presence. Finally, she threw up her arms in frustration and sat down on the edge of an angel fountain to rest.

"I was beginning to think you wouldn't come," echoed a familiar voice in the distance.

Helena jumped to her feet and looked all around her, but saw no one. "Where are you?" she called out.

"I am all around you," replied the voice of the Uncanny. "I do not appreciate disobedience. I intend to do great things for you, and I expect your reverence in return."

As Helena continued to look around, she realized that the echoing voice was coming straight from the angel statue. ""First tell me who you are," she called out, frustrated by the audacity of the strange ghost, "or I'm not doing shit."

"Have I not told you already?" the voice replied calmly. "I am the outcast of many names: the prince of darkness, the great serpent, the dragon of Revelation."

"And I told you that I don't believe in that shit. Now who the fuck are you? Tell me now or I walk. I refuse to play games with you."

"Very well," said the voice. "If you wish to know who I truly am, that I shall reveal myself to you."

TO BE CONTINUED...


End file.
